Constructing the adult learner : a governmentality analysis

(1)

Constructing the adult

learner

- a governmentality analysis

Andreas Fejes

Linköping Studies in Education and Psychology No. 106 Linköping University, Department of Behavioural Sciences

(2)

Linköping Studies in Education and Psychology • No. 106

Distributed by:

LINKÖPING UNIVERSITY

Department of Behavioural Sciences

SE-581 83 Linköping

Andreas Fejes

Constructing the adult learner

- a governmentality analysis

Edition 1:1

ISBN

91-85497-47-9

ISSN

1102-7517

© Andreas Fejes

Department of Behavioural Sciences 2006

Printed by LiU-Tryck, Linköping 2006

(3)

Acknowledgements

Writing a dissertation is to some extent a lonely task, but also a collective one. The lonely part refers to all the weeks, days and hours of closing the door to your office, apartment, etc. as a way to have some quiet time to read and to write. Collective, as you work in an environment where you on a daily basis discuss issues related to research with colleagues during coffee breaks, lunches, at seminars, etc. Further, you discuss issues related to your work with friends and relatives. They want to know what you are doing and you have to find a way to explain it in a few sentences that make it sound interest-ing and comprehensive. Thus, as the task is both individual and collective, the discourse of writing a dissertation requires some acknowledgements on the part of the author which now follows.

First of all, I want to acknowledge everything my parents, Eva Fejes and Laslo Fejes, have done for me. They are part of the collective task of chang-ing the structural patterns of education where there is an under representation of people from the working class studying at the universities (SOU 2000:47). As part of the working class, they gave their children the encouragement and support to study during comprehensive and upper secondary school, they encouraged us to do our best and they encouraged us to apply to university. There are few greater gifts a parent can give to his or her children than such encouragement. For that, I am deeply indebted.

Secondly, I want to thank my two excellent supervisors for the profes-sional input they have given me during my PhD studies. Staffan Larsson has given me constructive input on my project and its different textual products. He has been a good process supervisor who has always had time for my ques-tions and reflecques-tions. Ulf Olsson has given me insightful and helpful com-ments on my theoretical perspective and the way I apply it. For their encour-agement and input I am thankful.

Thirdly, I want to acknowledge all the helpful comments and interesting conversations I have had with my colleagues at Linköping University, the Department of Behavioural Sciences, the unit for the studies of adult educa-tion, higher education and liberal adult education and my colleagues at the graduate school of adult learning. Further, I would like to mention some col-leagues with who I have had closer collaboration. First, Per Andersson with whom I have written extensively on the issue of validation, e.g. article num-ber two in this dissertation. Henrik Nordvall and Kristina Johansson with whom I have discussed issues related to our PhD studies, and who have made critical and constructive comments on what I have written. I also want to

(6)

thank all the other people at my department and unit as well as all the other people who have supported me. You know who you are.

Fourthly, I wish to thank Kenneth Petersson who gave me valuable input on my dissertation at the final seminar before completing it.

Fifthly, a great thanks to Alexander de Courcy, who has edited the lan-guage in all of my articles and in the synthesis. Without his help this text would have been much harder to understand.

Lastly, I want to thank Professor Thomas S. Popkewitz, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, for invit-ing me as an honorary fellow to his department durinvit-ing the sprinvit-ing of 2005. The seminars I attended during my four-month visit, and the feedback pro-vided by Popkewitz on parts of my dissertation were valuable in the devel-opment of the theoretical framework used, and the analysis made in this dis-sertation.

Andreas Fejes

(7)

1. Introduction

Would you agree that lifelong learning seem to be a mantra which we can hear everywhere; from policy makers, the media, our boss, our colleagues at work, our teachers and even maybe from our friends? Usually, it seems as if lifelong learning refers to us as humans who learn during our entire life, not only at school, but also during our leisure time, at work, etc. Thus, it seems as if we are constructed as adults who learn all the time. How come we speak of adults as learners? My hypothesis is that it has some relation to how lifelong learning and adult education are discussed today related to ideas about gov-ernance. How do we reason about adult education? Is adult education a way to include people in society; to give adults a first or a second chance and/or is it a way to free people from constraints in their everyday life, e.g. to acquire the prerequisites to be able to participate in the political apparatuses in Swe-den such as voting, etc? Further, is adult education spoken of as a way of increasing the prosperity of Sweden, a way of minimizing state expenditures? Adult, higher and liberal adult education is repeatedly spoken of in such a way in official documents produced today. Educating the adult population is presented as one of the most important political goals on the agenda, as a way of constructing a good and prosperous society where there are both gains for society and the individual (e.g. SOU 1998:51). It would be interesting to try to analyse what kinds of effects such a way of speaking constructs. In one way, one might say that my starting point in this dissertation is to see how concepts such as lifelong learning and inclusion, central in the discussion on adult education in Sweden, are more or less taken for granted. The way we speak about such concepts might seem to be the ‘only’ way to speak of them. Everyone should ‘of course’ be included in society. But 20 years ago we did not speak of lifelong learning to the same extent and in the same way, or of inclusion in the same way. Thus, the use of such concepts in their specific forms today probably has a relation to how the adult learner and the govern-ing of such a subject are discussed. The idea that we learn all our lives con-structs a specific adult learner; one who is constantly learning. Thus, the way we speak of adult education and all our everyday practices are part of creat-ing such an adult learner. We have what Mitchell Dean (1999) calls a prob-lematic of government; a situation in which questions about government and of how one should govern arise. As an illustration I will take an example from one official text concerning adult education.

(8)

Lifelong learning should be a real possibility for all – from the early stages of life and throughout life. In a society where education and knowledge become more and more important for the welfare of society, every indi-vidual’s opportunities for lifelong and lifewide learning must be promoted. This requires a well developed infrastructure for lifelong learning in which everyone’s knowledge and competencies needs to be acknowledged; eve-ryone needs to be supported when making important choices and eveeve-ryone is given access to the learning they need; at the time, in the way, within the preferred area of education, and at the level needed. Increased collabora-tion between society, working life and the individual is needed if this is to become a reality instead of only a wish for the future. In the last few years, extensive changes have been initiated aimed at strengthening the individu-als, the labour markets and society’s demand of lifelong learning (DS 2003:23, p. 7).

In the above quotation, we can discern several statements, which influence who the adult learner should become. First of all, there is an idea that knowl-edge and education are central aspects of the wellbeing of Sweden. There-fore, the citizens need to participate in lifelong learning. Not only are they to be educated, but also the knowledge already gained is to be acknowledged. Lifelong learning is a continuous and lifelong process of learning that takes place in different settings; you are never free from learning. Further, there is an individualisation of the adult. He/she has to choose by him/herself what to, when to, how to and what level of education to participate in. Someone should support the person in such choices, but the choices should be made by the adult him/herself. The individual is part of a society and working life. These three actors need to cooperate as a way of creating a desirable future. Such ways of reasoning are in line with several narratives concerning adult and higher education today. Everyone needs to be included in lifelong learn-ing, but not through a ‘state’ dictating who and in what way. Instead, the individuals are encouraged to be their own decision makers in their lives; they should desire participation in lifelong learning. No more is there a ‘state’ deciding what to do and what not to do. We should be free!

But as a researcher, the question is not to acknowledge such narratives. Instead, it is to scrutinise it, try to understand it from different viewpoints. One might want to see what the constraints are for each person to be able to become free of these constraints – to empower disadvantaged, oppressed groups and to change society. In such an analysis, the focus might be on structural aspects in our society and its practices such as gender, poverty, illness, organizational ownership, etc. and how they limit the possibilities for certain groups to act and/or to learn (e.g. Brown 2005, Endresen & Von Kotze 2005, Gouthro 2005, Yoon ng & Cervero 2005). Another perspective

(9)

might be to analyse how lifelong learning contributes to the good of the peo-ple. How can education and learning be organised as a way of enabling us to face the future and its challenges (e.g. Barnett 2000a, 2000b, Gibbons 2002, Soden & Maclellan, 2005)? Yet another perspective, which I have employed in this dissertation, might be to try and analyse these texts as producers and products of discourse. Discourse defines what can and cannot be said, what is included and excluded. It is an interest in power relations where power is seen as productive; it produces certain kinds of subjects (Foucault 1980, 1981). Further, discourse constructs ideas of who the adult learner should become and a specific idea of how governing is to be conducted. Discourse is specific to time and space. What can be said about the adult learner today might not have been the case 50 or 100 years ago. Thus, the problem today seems to be how a country will be able to shape its citizens as educated sub-jects who are responsible individual actors as a way of creating a prosperous society. What makes it possible to speak about adult education and the adult learner in such ways today?

In this dissertation, I will problematize narratives about adult education and the adult learner in our own time by contrasting it with other cultural and historical situations. What are, according to these narratives, the problems we face today and how can adult education and the adult learner be a solution to these? What makes it possible to speak about the subject in the way it is spo-ken of? Is the way of speaking about the subject the only way? How has it been spoken of earlier on? In what way is the subject to be governed? What rationalities of governing are constructed? What kinds of practices of exclu-sion are created? In sum, my interest is to analyse the rationalities of ing created in the discourse of adult education and how techniques of govern-ing fabricate specific adult learners.

I have not limited the material I have analysed to a specific institution as my interest is in the construction of the adult learner. Instead, I have analysed official documents concerned with both adult education, higher education and liberal adult education as a way of answering the questions posed. The rela-tion between these different institurela-tions is specific to time and space, and thus it is problematic to exclude one or the other from this study in relation to the divisions made in the discourse today1_{. Further, as I am interested in}

1

Today, adult education, liberal adult education and higher education are defined as different kinds of institutions concerning the level of education, what the target groups are, what kind of pedagogical approaches they use, etc. Further, research on these institutions is divided into different areas of research. There are separate con-ferences for adult education (and liberal adult education) research and higher

(10)

educa-questions of discourse, relational power, subject constructions, etc., the most logical choice for me has been to be inspired by two concepts from the Fou-cauldian toolbox; governmentality and genealogy. I will discuss these con-cepts later on.

The dissertation is divided into two parts. The first one consists of a syn-thesis based on the four articles, which make up the dissertation. The synthe-sis consynthe-sists of six chapters. In the next chapter, I will outline the theoretical framework used in this dissertation and specify the aim of the dissertation. This will be followed in the third chapter by an outline of the analytical ap-proach, some methodological considerations and a discussion of the empiri-cal material analysed. In the fourth chapter, I will turn to research conducted in the field of governmentality. Firstly, related to educational research and secondly, related to research on adult, liberal adult and higher education. The fifth chapter contains summaries of the four articles on which this disserta-tion is based. Some general conclusions made in this dissertadisserta-tion will be dis-cussed in the sixth chapter.

The second part (the appendix) consists of the four articles. They are in order of appearance:

1. Fejes, A. (2005) New wine in old skins: Changing patterns in the governing of the adult learner in Sweden. International Journal of

Lifelong Education, 24(1), 71-86.

2. Andersson, P. & Fejes, A. (2005) Recognition of prior learning as a technique for fabricating the adult learner: a genealogical analysis of Swedish adult education policy. Journal of Education Policy, 20(5), 595-613.

3.

4. Fejes, A. (submitted) European citizens under construction - the Bo-logna process analysed from a governmentality perspective.

tion research. Thus, there is a discursive construction of what is and what is not within the frames of e.g. higher educational research.

Fejes, A. (Accepted for publication, minor revisions) The planetspeak discourse of Lifelong learning in Sweden – reconstituting the adult edu-cable subject: a genealogical analysis of rationalities of governing. Journal

(11)

2. Theoretical perspective

I draw on two concepts from the Foucauldian toolbox, governmentality and genealogy as guidance in the analysis made. The former refers to a specific way of viewing questions of governance and the latter refers to a specific way of viewing history. These concepts have been further elaborated on by other researchers and this will be included in my discussion of the issue. In this chapter, I will outline a theoretical perspective with a focus on govern-mentality. Genealogy will be elaborated on in the next chapter when I discuss my analytical approach since it can be seen as a specific perspective on how to view history.

Foucault had as his project to dissolve taken-for-granted truths and uni-versal claims. Thus, he did not want to construct a coherent system of ideas to which he would have to adapt. There should be no meta-theory construct. Instead, he changed definitions of how to speak about different concepts dur-ing his career. Thus, summarisdur-ing his theoretical ideas is an impossible task. Instead, I will try to outline some of the concepts that are important in rela-tion to this dissertarela-tion. As a way of framing the concept of governmentality, I will start by discussing the concepts of power and knowledge. These are two central concepts in Foucault’s reasoning about governmentality and ge-nealogy. His view of power as relational and productive is different from what one usually might think about power. Another central question within governmentality studies concerns how the subject is being constructed, some-thing I will discuss in the second part of this chapter. I will continue with a discussion of the concept of discourse, which is central to the understanding of how power and knowledge operate and how subjectivity is constructed. After outlining these different concepts, I will focus on the concept of gov-ernmentality and some of its central features based on the discussion so far. Lastly, I will state the aim of the dissertation.

Power and knowledge

Because Foucault wants to question the commonly accepted truths operating in different historical practices, knowledge and power become central. The focus is on the question of “how systems of knowledge organize our being in the world through the construction of rules of reason, the ordering of the ob-jects of reflection and the principles for action and participation (Popkewitz et al 2001, p. 5)”. The historical relations between power and knowledge, which operate within different kinds of institutions such as the mental

(12)

hospi-tal, the prison, etc., are important. In what way do such relations regulate the behaviour of those who are brought within the boundaries of such institu-tions? For example, in the history of sexuality: the will to knowledge (Fou-cault 1990a), the emergence of the perverse individual is analysed. Fou(Fou-cault argues that during the 18th century sexuality was controlled through Christi-anity, canon law and the civil law. For example, you should confess the de-sires of the flesh in your confession as a way of being a good Christian. The focus was on the question of how the obligations of marriage were fulfilled. Married life was thus subject to rules that had to be followed. Threats to the marriage such as homosexuality, bestiality, infidelity, etc. were condemned by law.

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries there is a shift in how to con-trol sexuality. The natural laws of marriage and the inner rules of sexuality are separated. The focus is on the sexuality of those who do not love the other gender such as the child, homosexuals, the insane, criminals, etc. The church has now been replaced by medical science, which defines what kind of sexu-ality is normal and abnormal. Thus, sexusexu-ality now becomes an issue for the public authorities that can be related to the emergence of the population as an economic and political problem. No longer do the authorities have to deal with a ‘people’, but with a population and all of its characteristics such as nativity, health, fertility, frequency of sickness, etc. No longer is the good of the nation only related to the amount of inhabitants, their quality and pattern of marriage. Now, it also becomes related to everyone’s sexual behaviour, which becomes the target for analysis and intervention. No longer should the population become maximized. Instead, it should be regulated through nativ-ity, by means of encouraging/restraining mechanisms according to the needs of society. Sexuality becomes a public effort in a relation between the state and the individual. Thus, sexuality is now spoken of in other ways, by other people from other points of departure and with other intentions – the dis-course of sexuality has changed.

What we see is how the demand made on the population to speak about their sexuality, as in the Christian confession, is still present during the 18th and 19th centuries. But now you need to speak about it in other ways than before as there is another production of knowledge related to another func-tioning of power. Instead of power funcfunc-tioning as a prohibition (the law), it now spreads everywhere and reinforces itself and the object (the deviant per-son) it works upon. Now, the deviant person is made into an individual who has a life history and the perverse sexuality is inscribed in the person’s body, named and categorised. The mechanism of power, which hunts such devi-ances, makes claims to remove it. But the effect is the opposite as the power transforms deviance into a system of classification where each deviant

(13)

behav-iour needs to be specified. As it has become a medical phenomenon, one needs to search for the deviances within the person’s soul, his/her body and actions – power enters everywhere. Confessional practices are not only re-lated to sexuality. As will be argued in this dissertation, confessional prac-tices can be seen everywhere today. Each person should desire to speak about themselves, e.g. in relation to the study counsellor. Educational, psychologi-cal and sociologipsychologi-cal sciences produce knowledge about the adult learner as someone who is to be self-directed and a constant learner, thus categorising those who are not constant learners as deviant. Such deviances need to be normalised through adult education.

During the 19th century, sexuality was problematised in medical and psy-chological terms and today, the adult learner is problematised in educational, psychological and sociological terms. Such ways of speaking about sexuality and the adult learner do not emerge outside of or in opposition to power. In-stead, they are developed at the site where power operates, and they are a starting point for the operation of power. Such a way of reasoning about power is one of the distinct characters of Foucault’s theorising. Power and knowledge are not external to each other, nor are they identical. Instead, they are intertwined in a correlative relationship, which is determined in its his-torical specificity (Dreyfus & Rabinow 1983). For power to operate, it needs to be grounded in knowledge about the things it operates on and in relation to. Knowledge about the deviant (produced by e.g. medicine) constructs the deviant as abnormal (an operation of power).

Usually, one relates power to governing in a specific way. The one who governs is the one who has the power, which Foucault (1980) calls the re-pressive hypothesis. He questions such a view. Instead, one of his starting points is that power is not something that a person inherits and which can be used against others. It is not a thing, a commodity or a position. Nor does power have any essence. Therefore it cannot repress people. Instead, power is relational. Foucault argues that power:

must be analysed as something which circulates, or rather as something which only functions in the form of a chain. It is never localised here or there, never in anybody’s hands, never appropriated as a commodity or piece of wealth. Power is employed and exercised through a net-like or-ganisation. And not only do individuals circulate between its threads; they are always in the position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising this power. They are not only its insert or consenting target; they are al-ways also the elements of its articulation. In other words, individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application (Foucault 1980, p. 98).

(14)

Foucault emphasizes the power produced in the micropractices of relations, such as in a classroom, a prison, a factory, etc. Everyone is undergoing and exercising power at the same time. Therefore, power should be studied in its extreme points of exercise, where it is in an immediate relationship with the object (its target) and where it installs itself and produces its effects (Foucault 1980). An example of such an analysis can be found in Foucault’s discussion of the examination in relation to the prison (Foucault 1991). The examination combines the modern forms of power and the modern form of knowledge – that of the individual. Through examination the subject is constantly placed under surveillance and this produces knowledge about the subject, which can constitute the foundation for the governing of it. As will be discussed later, it is in such relations that the subjects are constructed.

I will take a related example from the third article in this dissertation to illustrate the relation between power and knowledge. In the article, I discuss the figure of thought of the educable subject and trace it back to the early 20th century. The conclusion is that the figure has been present during the last 80 years, but that it differs in how it has been present. For example, in the pre-sent time the idea of the educable subject is part of the discourses of adult education and lifelong learning. Everyone is seen as being educable since everyone can be part of lifelong learning. Thus, a specific subject(position) is created (the lifelong learner), which is based on knowledge derived from the social sciences and statistics. Through such sciences, knowledge is produced about the population, which is then used as a starting point for defining what a ‘good adult’ (a lifelong learner) is. Thus, a specific kind of knowledge is a condition of possibility of speaking about the lifelong learner. The power relations define what is good and bad, drawing on the knowledge produced at the same time as those relations define what is and is not acceptable knowl-edge.

To conclude, Foucault does not intend to make a theory out of power. In-stead, he is proposing an analytics of power. Power is a “more-or-less coor-dinated....cluster of relations” in which one needs to “provide oneself with a grid of analysis which makes possible an analytic of relations of power (Fou-cault 1980, p. 199)”. Such an analysis will make it possible to map the effects of those power relations. One such effect is the construction of specific truths (discourses). “We are subjected to the production of truth through power and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth (Foucault, 1980, p. 93).” For modern society to function, we must all speak the truth. Power always tries to register the truth and it institutionalises and rewards it. We are subjected to the truth since it produces the true discourses, which are the bearers of the specific effects of power. These effects determine our mode of living. So power does not only constrain, it is also productive. Another

(15)

effect of power relations is the construction of subjectivities, a discussion I will now turn to.

Constructing the subject

One of Foucault’s interests was to study knowledge as social practice. Through the analysis of power/knowledge relations, the constitutions of the subject can be studied as a ‘decentering of the subject’. This represents a shift from studying the subject as an a priori entity to studying it as something bound to historical specific practices. For example, instead of studying blacks you study blackness, instead of studying homosexuals you study homosexu-ality (Popkewitz & Brennan 1998). Thus, instead of studying subjects as agents (a priori), the focus is on studying the specific historical practices, the discourses produced by and producing these practices and what different subject positions are constituted through it. As there are many different dis-courses, which are not always coherent, multiple subject positions are cre-ated. Thus, there is a decentering from the notion of a coherent self to a no-tion of multiple subjectivities (Chappell et al. 2003). In his writings, Foucault presented several ideas about how subjectivity is created, but all in some way relating to the idea of the decentering of the subject. He argued that the goal of his work has been to:

create a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human be-ings are made subjects. My work has dealt with three modes of objectifica-tion that transforms the human beings into subjects. The first is the modes of inquiry that try to give themselves the status of sciences....In the second part of my work, I have studied the objectivizing of the subject in what I shall call “dividing practices.”....Finally, I have sought to study – it is my current work – the way a human being turns him- herself into a subject (Foucault 2003b, p. 126).

In the articles, the analytical focus has been on the second and third (espe-cially the third) of these modes of how human beings are transformed into subjects. However, the first mode is part of my reasoning in relation to the second and third since the emergence of sciences is a central component of how subjectivity is shaped. Through the emergence of a new kind of knowl-edge, new techniques of governing such as the numerical grading, hierarchi-cal observations, etc. were made possible. These techniques are not only based on, but they also create, a new kind of knowledge – the scientific knowledge. Science emerges out of a power and knowledge game (Olsson 1997) where knowledge and power are closely related, as discussed in the former part of this chapter. Science sets the limits for what is and is not

(16)

ac-cepted as knowledge. With this mode of transforming humans into subjects in mind, I will now turn to a discussion on dividing practices and technologies of the self.

Dividing practices

In Discipline and Punish Foucault (1991) sets out to study how a specific form of power operates and is part of the construction of specific subjects. The focus is on the emergence of a specific discipline technique, which con-structs the modern individual as a ‘docile body’, an object of knowledge and a target for the exercise of power. It is an analysis of the technologies of the object (the body as object) and its objectification (object for knowledge pro-duction). The practice studied is the prison. It is not the materiality of the prison that interests him. Instead, it is the practice of discipline created through the prison. What kind of discipline procedures are embodied in this institution? Discipline is not the same as institutions; instead it is something that operates within the institution (Dreyfus & Rabinow 1983).

In his study of the prison, Foucault (1991) focuses on the idea of Ben-tham’s panopticon. This was an architectural construction in which the pris-oner was always visible. The cells were arranged in a circular order with a tower in the middle, which made it possible for constant surveillance of the prisoner. The prisoner was left to him/herself with no contact with the other inmates. The complexity of the system made it possible for constant surveil-lance without anyone watching the prisoners as they never knew when some-one was watching. The “panopticon brings together knowledge, power, the control of the body, and the control of space into an integrated technology of discipline (Dreyfus & Rabinow 1983, p. 189)”. It locates bodies in a specific space and it distributes individuals in relation to each other for hierarchical organisation. It makes individuals or populations observable and productive. Such power can control and transform bodies (Dreyfus & Rabinow 1983).

The panopticon can serve as an example of how Foucault reasons about power, knowledge and discipline. As mentioned above, through the panopti-con, the subject is placed under constant surveillance. Such a situation forces the subject to turn inwards and reflect upon his/her crime and punishment. By directing the punishment both towards the body and the soul, the aim was to create a behavioural modification. The process was performed through the precise use of administrative techniques of knowledge and power. Success was achieved if the punishment created a ‘docile body’ (Dreyfus & Rabinow 1983). Through surveillance, knowledge was gathered about the prisoner, which was the foundation of the application of the technique itself. The knowledge gathered can be related to the development of the human sciences,

(17)

which turned its attention towards humans, their ways of functioning, and the ideas of how to improve them.

As mentioned before, discipline is a technique, not an institution. It oper-ates within different institutions (such as the school, the hospital or the fac-tory) in relation to authorities or the juridical apparatus. Its way of working is, as in the case of the panopticon, to act on the body with the aim of chang-ing it. The body is seen as an object to be divided and analysed (knowledge) as a starting point for the application of power; a construction of a micro-power, which is the key to the disciplinary power (Dreyfus & Rabinow 1983). Through the disciplinary power the individual is invented: “Discipline ‘makes’ individuals; it is the specific technique of a power that regards indi-viduals both as objects and as instruments of its exercise (Foucault 1991, p. 170)”. The individuals are objects to be divided and analysed, at the same time as they are the starting point for and foundation of the exercise of power. Foucault (2003b) calls this procedure of subject construction a divid-ing practice. Through knowledge gathered about the subject, the normal and abnormal is constituted.

Central to the disciplining technique is the examination. It combines the process of surveillance and normalising judgement. “In this ritual, the mod-ern form of power and the modmod-ern form of knowledge – that of individuals in both cases – are brought together in a single technique (Dreyfus & Rabinow 1983, p. 158).” Such a procedure makes the object of power (the individual) visible through surveillance and knowledge gathered in dossiers while power itself seeks invisibility. In sum, the individual is invented through a specific crossing of power and knowledge. “He is the product of the complex strate-gic development in the field of power and the multiple developments in the human sciences (Dreyfus & Rabinow 1983, p. 160).”

In relation to this dissertation, I can take the example of recognition of prior learning (validation) discussed in the second article. In it, we can see how validation emerges in a specific power/knowledge relation. The individ-ual who is to validate his/her knowledge needs to take some tests (written, practical, oral), which validate that he/she has the knowledge required for a certain degree. These tests act as surveillance and normalising judgement. What is normal and abnormal is defined on the basis of the knowledge gath-ered about the subjects. Through the process of validation, the person might be constructed as a competent subject, one who has the required knowledge. If not, the person is categorised as not competent. Thus, the subject is con-structed on the basis of a specific kind of knowledge (with its foundation in the social sciences and statistics). Knowledge is the basis of the formation of power relations in which subjectivity is created. At the same time as power is

(18)

the basis of the formation of the accepted kind of knowledge, it regulates what is possible to say or not.

Technologies of the self

The reasoning about the subject as an object and a docile body to be changed through a dividing practice is, in Foucault’s later work, combined with ideas of the subject as an ethical subject to be changed. In his work on the history of sexuality Foucault (1990a) is interested in the relationship the subject has to him/herself. The relation is divided by Foucault (1983) into four different parts, which have been further elaborated on by Dean (1999) as a starting point for analysis. The first part concerns the ethical substance; it is the mate-rial to be worked upon (what to govern). For example, Foucault argues that in a general way, the ethical substance today is feelings, which are to be worked upon. It could also be the ‘soul’ in today’s penal discourses. In relation to the articles in this dissertation, I would argue that it is the ‘desire and will to learn’ that is the substance to be worked upon, e.g. you should desire to be-come a lifelong learner through self-work upon your ‘soul’.

The second aspect is the question of how to govern this ethical substance. What are the techniques used to change ourselves into becoming ethical sub-jects; the self-forming activity? What techniques are used to normalise indi-viduals? For example, they could be spiritual exercises or surveillance and normalisation used in the classroom. In the articles, I discuss techniques of guidance, risk calculation, auditing, etc. These all work upon the ‘soul’ of the adult subject shaping our desires in specific ways. The third aspect is the mode of subjection referring to the way in which people are invited to recog-nise their moral obligations. Who are we when we are being governed? What is the basis of our moral obligations? For example, we might be the active participant in adult education, or an active jobseeker, etc. In the articles, it is the risk groups such as the unemployed, immigrants, social security depend-ants, persons with a low education, etc, who are to become lifelong learners and active participants in adult education. The fourth aspect is the teleos of government, which refers to ideas about the ethical subject we are to become through the work upon ourselves. Why do we govern and why are we being

governed? In my analysis, I argue that the teleos of government is a welfare

society where Sweden and Europe should be in the forefront of the world. What the questions above points to is an interest in seeing how people are shaped so as to work upon themselves. In his books on the history of sexuality, Foucault (1990a, 1990b, 1992) studies how this subject is con-structed by a process of subjectification. Through the idea of sexuality, bio-power (an interest in the manipulation of the body) spreads itself into the

(19)

innermost of the individual; into the soul. Central in his reasoning is the idea of technologies of the self. These are technologies, which the individual uses to effect changes on him/herself, e.g. the confession, which can take different forms such as study guidance as discussed in the first article. The problem with analysing these technologies is, according to Foucault (1983), firstly that they are invisible. They do not need the same material apparatuses (e.g. a specific space such as the prison, the classroom, etc.) used when producing objects. Secondly, the technologies are often linked to the techniques of di-recting others, e.g. pupils in educational institutions. One can compare this to the technologies of discipline in which an authority effects changes in a mute and docile body. But the modern body is not mute and therefore technologies of the self must be analysed (Dreyfus & Rabinow 1983). One of the main technologies Foucault elaborated on was the confession. He saw this as a central component of the technologies of controlling populations, and soci-ety. In relation to the confession, a series of subjectifying procedures were developed to interpret these confessions instead of objectifying procedures for controlling bodies. Therapeutic interventions were used on the subject instead of the corrective interventions on the docile bodies (Dreyfus & Rabi-now 1983).

The concept of technologies of the self are used especially in the first and fourth article in this dissertation. In the first, I discuss the idea of guidance and risk calculation. When entering adult education, the adult learner meets a study counsellor who will guide the person in his/her choices of education. This is a two-sided process in which the adult is encouraged to make deci-sions by him/herself about what to study, how to study, when to study, etc. You should ‘open up’ your inner self to the counsellor and share your desires and fears as a way of getting guidance on what kind of choices you can make. Thus, you are constructed as a subject who should work upon yourself to become a self-directed, autonomous individual. Similar reasoning is em-ployed in the fourth article where I discuss self-examination in relation to the technique of auditing. As a teacher at a university, you have to know what standards must be reached. Through a process of auditing, those standards are constantly evaluated, thus making the universities and the practice of the teacher into a visible, calculable and governable space. You should be made to desire to reach those standards through different techniques.

Discourse

Before I enter into a discussion on the concept of governmentality I want to discuss what consequences the Foucauldian approach used in this dissertation has on how I view text and discourse. Based on such a framework, I view

(20)

everything as text in the analysis performed. Everything in the world is seen as linguistic, cultural and social. Thus, there is no natural truth ‘out there’ to be found. Texts are seen as linguistic discourses which refer to other linguis-tic discourses. As everything such as subjects, objects, science, etc. has al-ready been named and interpreted, everything can be seen as text (Gustavs-son 1999). There is no correspondence between what we say and the ‘reality’ as ‘reality’ is apprehended through our understandings and interpretations of it (Beronius 1991). Thus, there is no pure meaning behind the text, or a pure meaning that a text refers too. You cannot say that there is something outside of the text (Gustavsson 1999). Instead, the catchword that nothing exists out-side of the text should be understood as a stance where the ‘nothing’ must be apprehended in the social manifestation of itself. In a discourse analysis, the focus is on the meaning production constructed through text, and there is no direct relation between the meaning produced in text and the ‘outer world’ (Neumann 2003). Thus, the ‘nothing’ is not in focus in a discourse analysis. Further, there is no difference between those texts that are designated as liter-ary or those as non literliter-ary (Mills 1997). I view all texts as discursive prac-tices which form social reality.

If everything is text, then where is the context? In this dissertation I am interested in the context as ‘context in text’. The texts analysed produce dis-courses and contexts of which such disdis-courses are part. Consequently, the idea that context and text are separate is dissolved. The texts analysed are themselves the context, as ‘reality’, or what we apprehend as reality is consti-tuted through text. Thus, the epistemological consequence is that knowledge of the world can only be gained through discourse. However, there might be a ‘reality’ outside of discourse, but that was not of any interest to Foucault nor is it of interest in this dissertation. He did not deny that there was a pre-existing reality or that there is a materiality to events. Instead, he argues that it is only through discourse that we can apprehend reality (Mills 1997). My ambition is that such a way of reasoning about reality will make it possible to produce results that give us a basis for reflection on adult education today, which is different from what other perspectives can give us. For example, I will try to reflect upon the present without the idea that there is a true hidden agenda behind the texts, or that there is a mastermind or agent who has planned a series of events. Instead, my ambition is to try and see what the discourse of adult education consists of, what is possible to say and not to say and to analyze what made it possible to speak in such ways. Thus, it will hopefully open up a space for reflection on adult education today.

How does text relate to discourse? During his career, Foucault made sev-eral different definitions of discourse thus making it impossible to fix any definition. Instead, my discussion of it should be seen as a short introduction

(21)

that does not cover all the aspects. It will be followed by a discussion on how I have applied the concept in my dissertation.

Discourse is, according to Foucault, “practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak (Foucault 1972, p. 49)”. Such practices pro-duce meaning, form subjects and define what is and what is not possible to say within specific institutions and societies in different historical times – who can speak when, where and with what authority (Foucault 1981). Thus, discourse does not only use signs to designate things, it also produces them, as I elaborated on when discussing power and knowledge. Further, discourse is made up of a group of statements belonging to the same discursive forma-tion. Statements are not grammatical entities restricted to sentences. Objects such as a map or a picture can be statements if they are representations of something (Dreyfus & Rabinow 1983). Further, the statements are specific to time and space and it is possible to define the conditions for them to emerge. Together they construct knowledge about the object of which they speaks. The discursive formation is defined as:

Whenever one can describe, between a number of statements, such a sys-tem of dispersion, whenever, between objects, types of stasys-tement, con-cepts, or thematic choices, one can define a regularity (an order, correla-tions, positions and functionings, transformations), we will say, for the sake of convenience, that we are dealing with a discursive formation (Fou-cault 1972, p. 38).

Thus, a discursive formation is an ordered regularity between a number of statements, concepts, objects and thematic choices. These are different in time and space. According to Foucault, the statements exists, while the regu-larity between statements is constructed by the discourse analyst (Åkerström Andersen 2003). One might say that when conducting a discourse analysis, the researcher constructs a discursive formation by defining a regularity be-tween a number of objects, statements, concepts and thematic choices. Draw-ing on the above, a discourse could be seen as made up of a discursive forma-tion.

Further, a discourse exists through the discursive practices; or the discur-sive practice is made up of the exercise of discourse. It is a social practice forming social reality (Winther Jorgensen & Phillips 2002). Thus, the focus of the researcher is on analysing these practices which are:

a body of anonymous, historical rules, always determined in the time and space that have defined a given period, and for a given social, economic,

(22)

geographical, or linguistic area the conditions of operation of the enuncia-tive function (Foucault 1972, p. 117).

A discursive practice consists of collections of rules, which define the objects of which it speaks (the objects which are possible to speak of) – the condi-tions of the possibility to speak about something in the way spoken of. For example, a discursive practice can be the specific rules of the social sciences, which allow it to produce certain pictures of the adult learner, something that changes over time. Further, it can be the methods used by religion, politics, media, etc, as a way of constructing statements about the objects of which it speaks (Lindgren 1993). As elaborated on earlier, it is in these discursive practices that power and knowledge operates to define what is normal and abnormal. Thus, the only way for us to study discourse is to do it through the study of discursive practices.

In the analysis made, I use the concept of discourse in a pragmatic sense. Discourse is defined as a set of statements about something that orders ‘real-ity’. Statements also produce certain figures of thought2_{(ideas) that are part}

of a discourse; e.g. a figure of thought of the educable subject, of the autonomous subject, the individual, etc. These figures of thought make up the discourse, but are not identical to it (Asplund 1979). As Hultqvist (2004), I view such figures of thoughts as historical parts of the discourses which mo-bilise the subjects. Further, the statements regulate and define what is normal and abnormal, what can be said and what cannot be said. For example, I speak of the discourse of adult education in the sense that there are, in differ-ent discursive practices, statemdiffer-ents made about what adult education is and is not, e.g. who is the student, teacher, what is learning, how is teaching to be practiced, what is adult education to become, etc? To give an illustration, we can see how statements are made about adult education as a means of making people employable, of including them in society, of making them into good citizens, etc. Other ways of speaking are not possible, such as speaking of adult education as a demoralisation project. If such a statement is made, it will be excluded and categorised as abnormal.

It is important to note that the text I am constructing is in itself con-structed by and part of the construction of the discourses I am analysing. As a researcher, I am as much a position in the discourse as the adult learner. I cannot stand outside of the discourse, but I can try to take a critical analytical

2

Figure of thought is a concept commonly used in studies taking a similar approach to mine, for example, Petersson (2003) and Hultqvist (2004). In the text, I will use idea as synonymous to figure of thought so as to make the text more readable (to avoid too many repetitions of the same word).

(23)

stance in relation to the present time as a way to create a starting point for reflections on it.

Governmentality

Foucault did not elaborate extensively on the concept of governmentality. Instead, the concept has been developed after his death by other researchers. But, in his later work, Foucault (2003b) focuses on the governability of sub-jects. What rationalities of governing are constructed in specific historical spaces? The focus of his analysis is on the emergence of the modern social state. Through it the exercise of power has become more finely meshed, ex-panded and scattered. The result is increased governability through regula-tions, standardisations of peoples conduct, etc. (Hultqvist & Petersson 1995).

Governmentality helps us to understand the advanced forms of modern exercise of power and its different expressions (Hultqvist & Petersson 1995). Dean (1998, 1999) has suggested that the study of government can be ap-proached through analysis of cases in which the practice of governing is put into question. These are practices where actors are forced to pose questions about how to govern. He calls such an approach the study of problematisa-tions. The analysis is focused on how it is possible to reason about govern-ance in the way reasoned. If we relate it to this dissertation, the focus is on analysing the problematisation of how to govern the adult learner. According to the analysis performed in my articles, there are narratives today that ques-tion the present order of things. Sweden and Europe are on the verge of lag-ging behind the rest of the world if certain measures are not taken. Thus, questions are posed concerning how best to govern the adult learner.

Liberalism, Neo-liberalism and advanced liberal rule

What is being analysed in a governmentality analysis are liberal rationalities of governing, which I will now elaborate on. Liberal does not refer to liberal-ism as a political ideology. Instead, it refers to a more broad mentality of how to problematize governing which cannot be linked to a certain political party, etc. Such a mentality is almost expressed everywhere (Hultqvist & Petersson 1995). One can say that liberalism is a mode of governing. Foucault (2003a) argues that we can see how there has been a process of governmentalization of the state during the last few hundred years; a change from a repressive centralized power of the prince to punish, to a more decentralized way of governing through institutions and the subjects themselves. As statistics and science emerged, population was constructed as an entity that could be meas-ured and governed. Statistics was the condition of possibility for the popula-tion to emerge. The interest in the body was no longer in its reproductive

(24)

function, but on the possibility of manipulating it. In relation to such a devel-opment, we could see the emergence of bio-power as a coherent political technology. Bio-power is made up of two parts; concern for the human spe-cies and interest in the body as an object to be manipulated. The analytical focus for Foucault is to study what kind of rationality of governing this kind of political technology is part of/and is constructing; and the techniques it is associated with (Dreyfus & Rabinow 1983).

Such a shift in governmentalities has also been elaborated on by Rose (1996). One of his main themes is to analyse how we are being governed in a time of ‘advanced’ liberalism and how it came that the obligations of the political authorities have been extended to areas seen as non-political, such as workplaces, homes, schools, etc.

Rose (1996) argues that during the early 19th century, liberalism pro-duced certain problems that had to be governed; such as how to govern in the interest of morality and order and how to restrict the government in the inter-est of liberty and economy. The experts (knowledgeable persons) emerged as a solution to the government of such an opposition between public and pri-vate (e.g. philanthropists, the positive sciences, the scientist, etc.). The ex-perts could be different people or groups of people who had ideas of what social problems there were and programmes for how to solve these problems. These political forces did not only try to regulate behaviours through laws, authoritative state agencies, etc. They also did so by utilising and instrumen-talising authority other than that of ‘the state’. Thus, governing ‘at a distance’ was made possible where a clear distinction was made between public and private.

During the late 19th century and early 20th century, such a way of govern-ing was questioned. Instead, a new formula for the exercise of rule called the ‘social’ emerged with the idea of a ‘state of welfare’ at the core. Earlier, the authority of expertise was tied to the idea of and the division between public and private, now it was tied to the political formal apparatus of rule. The negative consequences of industrialism were to be governed through society. Political authorities were to be the ones to guarantee the freedom of both the individual and the capitalist enterprises. The state was transformed into a centre that could govern persons distant from it; a social state. Expertise was central through its productions of truths, which made governing at a distance possible in another way than before.

In the middle of the 20th century, such modes of governing were ques-tioned as the state of welfare was problematised as failing. Neo-liberalism emerged as a fairly coherent rationality of governing, which, like liberalism, was sceptical to political governance. But nevertheless, it constructed the ‘real’ as possible to diagnose and to cure. According to such a rationality of

(25)

governing, new strategies of government are needed (Rose 1996). Combined with such rationality of governing was a process of decentralisation of insti-tutions in different networks of power. Today, governing is practiced through alliances between different authorities, which seek to regulate the economy, social life and the life of the individual. Thus, the concept of freedom has been reconceptualised. Now, we are defined as autonomous and active indi-viduals who seek self-realisation (Hultqvist & Petersson 1995) in the name of freedom. As Burchell (1996) argues, neo-liberalism:

constructs a relationship between government and the governed that in-creasingly depends upon ways in which individuals are required to assume the status of being the subjects of their lives, upon the ways in which they fashion themselves as certain kinds of subjects, upon the ways they prac-tice their freedom (Burchell 1996, p. 29-30).

One could say that neo-liberalism (like liberalism, but in other ways) pro-motes a specific form of freedom as a way of integrating the self-conduct of the governed into the practices of government.

Based on a neoliberal governmentality, Rose (1996) tries to analyse a more durable transformation in rationalities of governing, which he calls advanced liberal rule. Advanced liberal rule seeks to degovernmentalize the state and its different practices of governing. Instead of governing through society, advanced liberal rule asks if it is possible to govern without govern-ing society; to govern through the regulated choices of the citizens. A dis-tance should be created between the decisions of the political institutions and other social actors. Expertise, which during the early 20th century was tied to the political apparatus, which should speak the truth and thus govern at a distance through society were now replaced. Instead, an expertise, which is disconnected from the political apparatuses and relocated within a market governed by ideas of competition, accountability and consumer demand, emerges. It seeks to regulate the choices of each citizen instead of governing through society. There is a responsibilisation of the experts, where they can no longer handle demands made on them by referring to their own criteria of truth. Now they need to refer to a ‘purchaser-provider’ market, thus they are assembled in a new relation of power. Through the provision of choices, the citizens should desire self-fulfilment and thus they are created as autonomous actors who choose their own paths in life. Everyone needs to become an ex-pert on him/herself; to be knowledgeable in relation to one’s self-care. You are governed through your freedom, not as a citizen of society but as a mem-ber of heterogeneous communities to which you feel a responsibility. Such governing is not conducted through techniques of the state; instead it is

(26)

con-ducted through techniques acting in the name of freedom (choices) such as commercial, television programs, goods, etc. (Rose 1996).

Drawing on the above, we can see how there are some central compo-nents in a liberal rationality of governing. Firstly, there is the relation be-tween public and private. Over the last few centuries, this relation has shifted; from a clear division to a more blurred one where the private interest coin-cides with the public. Secondly, the concept of freedom is central as it is cre-ated by and is a prerequisite of a liberal governmentality. People need to ac-knowledge themselves as, and act as, free individuals who are part of a soci-ety with certain obligations. Such an act by the individual is the foundation for a governing where one willingly accepts responsibilities and tasks such as to define and guarantee the maintenance of a specific freedom (Hultqvist & Petersson 1995). Thirdly, experts are central to a liberal rationality of govern-ing even if it has shifted in form; from begovern-ing decentralised from the state, becoming tied to the political apparatuses of the state, and today becoming decentralised in a market of competition and consumer demands. Today, we can see how there is an autonomous expertise, which is the answer to the question of how one can limit the political domain and yet regulate the be-haviour of the population. The liberal rationality of governing today is de-pendent on such relations; the relation between the political strategies and expertise, and the relation between the expertise and the free citizens (Hultqvist & Petersson 1995).

How to govern?

As can be discerned from above, governmentality refers to mentali-ties/thoughts concerning how governing should be practiced. Governmental-ity focuses on the articulation of different kinds of rationalities of govern-ment, not on what constitutes the correct way of governing. Such rationality is always based on, or has a relation to, an idea of what to govern. Things and objects do not have a static meaning. Instead, they are always open to rein-terpretation made through the scientific choices of concepts and theories. It is the aim of governmentality to make the power political circumstances and mentalities visible that make it possible for us to create these specific inter-pretations (Hultqvist & Petersson 1995). Thus, the main focus of a rationality of governing is on how to govern, the conduct of conduct – how to lead the governing. The concept of conduct points to several meanings; to conduct is to lead or guide, and it also means to conduct oneself (ethical aspect) in a self-directed way in certain situations; our articulated set of behaviours which often are seen as possible to judge in relation to certain norms. All these meanings merge in the concept of governmentality; governing attempts to

(27)

shape our behaviour according to a particular set of norms and ideas. It is not done through laws. Instead, the rationalities of governing are inscribed into different tactics which shape the conduct of the population by working through our desires, aspirations and beliefs (Dean 1999). Foucault expresses it:

… the finality of government resides in the things it manages and in the pursuit of the perfection and intensification of the processes it directs; and the instrument of government, instead of being laws, now come to be a range of multiple tactics (Foucault 2003a, p. 237).

Thus, an analytics of government focuses on what to govern, how to govern, what the conditions are for governing and what the rationalities of governing are. It is important to note that governing does not attempt to determine peo-ple’s subjectivities. Instead, in relation to the productive aspect of power, governing shapes, promotes and attributes subjectivity. Subjects should be made into active ones who confess their desires in life. At the same time as the subjects becomes active, there is also the possibility for them to fashion different meanings and subjectivities. Social practices and subjectivities are never fixed (Edwards 2006). Thus, the subject construction discussed in the articles should not be seen as oppressive and fixed. Instead, they should be seen as constantly fluctuant.

So far we have seen how there are several concepts and ideas that are central in relation to governmentality. To be able to analyse governmentali-ties of the present, one needs to analyse the specific power/knowledge rela-tions present in the discourses and how such relarela-tions contribute to the pro-duction of specific subjects, practices of exclusion, etc. One way of perspec-tivising such an analysis of the present is by performing a genealogical analy-sis, which will be discussed in the next chapter. But first, I will state the aim of this dissertation.

Aim of the dissertation

The aim of this dissertation is to problematize and perspectivise the construc-tion of the adult learner in the present time. How is such a subject constructed today through different techniques of governing in the practices of adult, liberal adult and higher education and what historical traces are there in such a construction? Further, the aim is to analyse what rationality of governing such governing practices are created by and create, which will be related to rationalities constructed earlier on.

(28)

(29)

3. Analytical approach

In the previous chapter, I discussed the theoretical perspective I adopt. Fol-lowing such reasoning, I will now elaborate on the analytical approach used, which is closely related to the theoretical perspective. Firstly, I will discuss the genealogical approach used in the first three articles. Secondly, I will discuss how I have conducted the discourse analysis in the four articles and what challenges there have been. This will be followed by a discussion of how one might evaluate the quality in a discourse analysis. Lastly, I will make some reflections on the material analysed.

Genealogy – a history of the present

In the previous chapter, I discussed some basic concepts in the Foucauldian toolbox and the governmentality approach. Such reasoning is related to the genealogical approach developed by Foucault (1977). With the help of gene-alogy, my aim is to perspectivise and to question the taken-for-granted ideas of the present. Such an endeavour is not only carried out by means of Fou-cauldian inspired analyses. For example, one of the main tasks for a critical theory analysis is to make explicit how dominant ideologies make people believe that certain ways of organizing society are in the best interests of everybody. Such an endeavour is normative in the sense that it is based on a political theory, which has changing society as its objective. The theory is valid if it has the capacity to inspire action (Brookfield 2005). Foucault op-poses such a way of conducting an analysis. He did not set out on a quest to find solutions or alternatives to problems in the present (Foucault 1983). In-stead, he wanted to do a genealogy of problems where the focus is on analys-ing the problems emerganalys-ing in specific historical and cultural practices. What made it possible for these problems to emerge and what effects of the histori-cal-specific relations of power and knowledge are there?

I’m not looking for an alternative; you can’t find the solution of a problem in the solution of another problem raised at another moment by other peo-ple. You see, what I want to do is not the history of solutions, and that’s the reason why I don’t accept the word “alternative”. I would like to do genealogy of problems, of problématiques. My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do. So my position leads not to apathy but to a hyper- and pessimistic activism (Foucault 1983, p. 231-232).

(30)

Thus, genealogy does not seek to uncover any true hidden meaning and show us alternatives of how to act as a way to free us from the constraints defined by the dominating ideology. Instead, as everything is dangerous, the task is to problematize problems in the present through the use of history as a toolbox. Of interest are those practices, institutions and ideas in the past, which are part of the present. Genealogy follows the descent of the problems and ideas in the present as a way to:

identify the accidents, the minute devotions – or conversely, the complete reversals – the errors, the false appraisals, and the faulty calculations that gave birth to those things that continue to exist and have value to us; it is to discover that truth or being do not lie at the root of what we know and what we are, but the exteriority of accidents (Foucault 1977, p. 146).

Thus, you should not write a linear history from a previous time to a later one. Instead, lines of descent and emergence are traced through nonlinear trajectories as a means of identifying the circumstances that gave birth to those things that still continue to have meaning to us. We use the past to question narratives of progress and the taken-for-granted ideas of the present time. Such an endeavour is normative in the sense that it does not prescribe what the results are of such questioning. Dean (1999) calls it an ‘exemplary criticism’ as opposed to prescription and foundational critique. Thus, it is another way of doing critical research than, for example, critical theory.

Genealogy was developed during the later part of Foucault’s (1972, 1977) career in opposition to the history of ideas. History has usually been seen as a process in which we are to create order out of chaos. We need to tell a story where causality is in the foreground as a way to explain our past and our present. For example, Marxism focuses on explaining the development of society in relation to the base and superstructure where materiality (the base) is used as an explanation of events in history (Beronius 1991). Foucault (1977), based on Nietzsche, argues that history should instead be seen as a process of discontinuities, temporality and without essence. The focus is on re-establishing systems of subjection by tracing the emergence of events, which arise in a play of domination. Such plays are temporary, specific to time and space, and they contain uncertain relative strengths, which produce non-calculated consequences. In these battles there is no pre-existing subject. Instead, they emerge and their roles are constructed and played out in differ-ent practices (Beronius 1991).

We can relate such reasoning to what I discussed earlier on about text. By interpreting social reality in our everyday life we create meaning. ‘Real’ objects might exist but they are meaningless without us relating them to other

(31)

objects and through the use of language. Thus, we make interpretations by using language. Those interpretations are analyzed by the genealogist. The analytical focus is on the circumstances that make it possible to interpret reality in the ways we do specific to time and space. These circumstances have a relation to how knowledge operates and how discourse is organized.

Thus, the researcher interprets interpretations, which are part of a play of domination, and maps out the strategies employed to make certain interpreta-tions the dominating ones. In the play of domination, the discourse of adult education is created based on specific relations of power and knowledge, which I discussed in the theoretical chapter. The aim of a genealogical study is not to acknowledge science and its aspiration for truth telling. Instead, the ambition is to study it as a practice, like any other practice that ‘does’ things (Hultqvist & Petersson 1995). In what ways do science and knowledge par-ticipate in the production of practices of governing and the one being gov-erned? Thus, the different relations of power, which define the practice of adult education, are not the product of a continuous history. Instead, the power relations exist through different disruptive dimensions of time and space (Popkewitz & Brennan 1998).

In other words, genealogy is an analysis of ideas in the present time. These ideas are traced back in time and the circumstances in which they emerged are analysed. The aim is to describe how governing practices are constituted and how they operate (what the effects are of the power operat-ing). This specific form of history has also been called a history of the pre-sent where history is seen as “an understanding of the prepre-sent and of collec-tive memory as the weaving together of multiple historical configurations that establishes connections that make for the common sense (Popkewitz et al 2001, p. 4)”. It is the historical configurations that are focused on, and the researcher tries to trace them back in time. It is the things taken for granted in our present time that are challenged. The perspective is:

… introducing a critical attitude towards those things that are given to our present experience as if they were timeless, natural, unquestionable: to stand against the maxims of one’s time, against the spirit of one’s age, against the current of received wisdom (Rose 1999a, p. 20).

A history of the present focuses on those configurations of rationality and power that constitute the problematic of the present. Further, it has to do with the specific ways we ask questions and formulate answers about our present time (Hultqvist & Petersson 1995).

Foucault (1983, p. 237) argues that there are three domains of genealogy possible, all of which in different ways are part of his studies. First, there is

Constructing the adult learner : a governmentality analysis

Constructing the adult

learner

- a governmentality analysis

Andreas Fejes

Linköping Studies in Education and Psychology • No. 106

Distributed by:

LINKÖPING UNIVERSITY

Department of Behavioural Sciences

SE-581 83 Linköping

Andreas Fejes

Constructing the adult learner

- a governmentality analysis

Edition 1:1

ISBN

91-85497-47-9

ISSN

1102-7517

© Andreas Fejes

Department of Behavioural Sciences 2006

Printed by LiU-Tryck, Linköping 2006

Contents

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction

2. Theoretical perspective

Power and knowledge

Constructing the subject

Dividing practices

Technologies of the self

Discourse

Governmentality

Liberalism, Neo-liberalism and advanced liberal rule

How to govern?

Aim of the dissertation

3. Analytical approach

Genealogy – a history of the present